


im·mer·sion

by Dutch



Series: Drink The Ocean [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Confusion, F/M, Falling In Love, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Human/Troll Relationship, Interspecies Relationship(s), Love, Love Confessions, POV First Person, Quadrant Confusion, and thats apparently all it takes to fall in love, college town, short dribbles covering year and a half
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 13:58:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10720704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dutch/pseuds/Dutch
Summary: Drink the Ocean - I promise you won't drown.Or how to fall in love with a troll in your senior year of college.





	im·mer·sion

**Author's Note:**

> So I got two requests to upload the safe for work stuff. I used to exclusively write these kinds of stories before I gave it up to only write canon charaters. It took me all day yesterday to get this half ass presentable to upload. it was mostly made up of footnotes until I decided to organize it. 
> 
> There's some implied John/Dave and implied past Dave/Karkat & past Terezi/Karkat but I just did not have time to work on other characters. I need this done so I hope that sacrifice didn't mess me up too bad. Hope you all like it!

“And because of this,” my professor droned, flipping the slide on the PowerPoint to bring up an equally boring gray slide as the last, “looking at the underlying issue of the problem is key to understanding.”

He flips the slide once more, his grizzled, silver mustache accentuating his words. The class begins packing up, and books and papers are shifted around. I’m still taking notes, planning to wait until the majority of the crowd has cleared out to leave.

“Remember next week we have a paper due,” the professor says over the noise, and then he flicks the PowerPoint once more to bring up the end of the presentation. People begin filing out and the overhead screen shuts off as the professor gathers his things too.

I’m still sitting, near the front, so people have to file past me to leave, but the class is thinning now, the back of the pack is nearing the door, and I look down, reaching for my bag on the floor. I’ve got my bag’s strap in my hand and it’s even with the table when a stack of papers slap down on the desk.

It’s a notebook, red covered with ‘psychology’ scrawled across the front. There’s a guy standing in front of me, a troll actually. He’s built big, and he’s tall too, and I recognize him from the first day, but we’ve never spoken. I fallow his black sweatered body up to his face. He was scowling, hard and harsh, with his eyes set in to a glare.

“What?” I asked. I didn’t want to be confrontational, but he was being confrontational.

His face twisted in to sort of a snarl, but then he relaxed and sighed, putting his head in his hand and sighed again.

“You gave that presentation last week,” he grumbled, his voice was low, but still kind of high for a guy, “and you just looked like you knew what you were talking about.”

“Thanks,” I replied. I’m getting suspicious, but I didn’t let it on. I remembered his presentation. It hadn’t been very impressive, but it was passing I supposed. Okay, so for a five minute presentation, it was horrible. Like, really horrible. It made me feel bad for him it was so horrible.

He made a face like that hasn’t actually been his point and then sighed a third time.

“Look,” he says harshly, but then he forced himself to soften again, “look, you understand this stuff, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I do,” I agreed, slowly taking my stuff off the table and packing it up. The teacher was long gone, though waiting for us to exit the room.

“I was wonder, do you think,” he trailed off, trying to pick his words. Christ, this guy had problems.

“Do you think you could help me with my paper?” He spit out quickly, like the words burnt his tongue.

Oh, okay. Asshole don’t know how to ask for help.

“Did you ask the teacher?” I ask, standing up. He’s taller than me, and I can see his eyes are red now that I’m making eye contact and actually looking at this guy. And I notice he’s got horns. I didn’t see them before they’re so nubby.

“That fuck face sent to to the writing lab, and those fumbling fucks might as well of been tripping over themselves they were so god damn incompetent,” he replies, picking his own notebook up off the table. I come around the desk and he fallows me as we leave the room, maybe he’s just going the same way, I’m not sure.

“Yeah, I guess I could help you. Is it something quick?” I asked, shifting my bag on to my back.

“No, no it’s more the whole,” he huffs, “no. It’s not.”

“Okay,” it’s my turn to sigh, “you wanna meet here in the library? Or for coffee or something?”

“Coffee,” he says, his nose wrinkling like he’d rather not, “there’s one near me. A Starbucks on Beecher and Linden?”

“Oh,” my face lights up, “yeah, man. I love that place. We must only be like a few blocks from each other.”

“Sure,” he says. I want to roll my eyes but I refrain.

“I’m Karkat,” he introduces himself, “Four o clock tomorrow?”

I eye my destination, a set of doors heading outside to the parking garage.

“Sure,” I say, and then smirk, “you get to buy my espresso when I get there.”

* * *

 

“Thanks for coffee, I didn’t litterally mean you had to buy mine.”

Karkat, who’s last name is Vantas, I learn, passes me off. “It’s fine. You agreed to help me so, it’s whatever.”

“What did you need help with, anyway?” I ask.

With a sigh, he heaves a laptop out of his bag on the floor and huffs as he opens it. It’s already on, and the screen springs to life as he opens it. His paper is already pulled up.

“So, he gave me a twenty out of one hundred on the last paper. My grade is down the goddamn toilet in that class anyway, but I can’t afford to fail. I was hoping, you could, er, peer edit?”

His paper doesn’t take long to get though. I run it though a google doc so I can suggest changes. I spend a lot of time fixing his sentence structures and words he confuses for other words, like there and they’re. He’s six hundred words under the minimum requirement.

“I mean it’s good, what you have,” I lie, “but your missing a lot, you don’t cite anything, and I dunno you sort of seem confused about the subject.”

“I’m not confused!” He immediately rejects, “the professor is a fucking idiot! The book reads like another fucking language and- ugh.”

The professor is a fucking idiot. I agree with him there. But the book I thought was pretty straight forward. I wonder if he’s got a learning disorder or something.

“Hey, that’s okay. If anybody can fix this it’s me.”

His gaze is still hard, but something like relief dances over his eyes.

“So did you come here to mock me and talk shit or what? Because I can waste my time elsewhere.”

“The mocking and shit talking is free of charge. Comes with the tutoring package,” I grinned.

“Great. Fucking great. Why am I not supprised,” he huffs, “Do you think maybe um, oh fuck. I hate to ask you this but do you think you could meet me here the same time next week? After we fix this paper, Just uh, for some…” he trailed off.

“Extra help?” I ask.

“Yes,” he replys, exasperated.

“Sure,” I punctuate my sentence with a sip of my espresso and I lean back in to get to work.

* * *

 

The first time I’ve seen him outside of class and outside of the coffee shop, it’s at it’s at the grocery store, and he’s got a can of Spam in his left hand and a jug of cranberry juice in his right. It’s like nine o clock at night and we make eye contact, and I can just see the embarrassment in his eyes.

“I swear to god I’m not eating these together,” he says, deadpan.

I had to laugh at that. “I’m not too worried about what you do with your food.”

He visibly relaxed.

“What I am worried about is the juice. How can you drink that stuff? It’s so sour.”

He rolls his eyes with the ghost of a smirk. “Same way you can shove disgusting ass root vegetable nonesense down your gullet.”

I have to look down in to my basket to figure out what he’s talking about. “What, potatoes? You don’t like potatoes?”

“They taste like dirt, oh my god,” he said.

“They’re in like, everything?” I question. He just kind of shrugs. “Dude, you just don’t know how to cook them right. That’s gotta be it. I’ll make you some potato salad. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to eat it, but you gotta at least try.”

“Yeah sure,” he replies, “whatever.”

The next time I see him at the coffee shop, I hand him a plastic Tupperware bowl of potato salad. When I see him in class again after the weekend, he insists that I teach him how to make it.

* * *

 

Snow fell an inch an hour on the college town streets, but with businesses out shoveling their walkways on this mid-day Saturday. It wasn’t too bad to walk three blocks over to the share house, besides the snow melting on my hair and sticking it to my head.

The share house’s neighborhood was covered in snow. There had to be at least four inches, so the city plow would be through but who knew when they’d get around to it. At least the walkway was clear up to the house even if the “go away” sign on the door was covered.

“Karkat!” I call, opening the door. The nubby horned troll peeked his head around the kitchen walkway seconds later.

“Hey! Do you want some of this Human Coco Milk that our friend Rose brought over? ” he called, “she thought it was just as fucking nasty as we do.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever,” I chat, and after taking off my, she met Karkat half way in the dinning room.

“Thanks,” I grin, taking the chipped mug from him and taking a sip. It was pretty shitty hot chocolate, ew. Maybe it was just the way he was making it? That was okay, I’d drink it anyway because it was warm and it was freezing outside. The way Karkat’s mug looked, he’d been slopping hot chocolate in and out of it all day. He must like the stuff.

That was cute actually.

“The potatoes are in the garage, I’ll go grab them,” he said, and he was gone momentarily. He returned with four plastic shopping bags full of them, and dumped them out on the worn kitchen counter.

“Why do you have so many if you hate them?” I ask.

“My friend John knows I hate them so he keeps leaving them in weird places in my house. He thinks he’s some kind of master prankster or something,” Karkat rolled his eyes. I laughed. That was a terrible prank. Maybe the first time it might have been funny, but this was a lot of potatoes.

“Anyway, we got lucky. Everyone else is out today, so we’ve got the house to ourselves,” he says. “No moronic interference today. You got lucky.”

“Oh awesome,” I grin, “I bet you have a lot of room mates in a house this big?”

“There’s only six of us, actually. And it’s not too bad, I sort of grew up with them.”

“Oh that’s exciting! I bet it wasn’t too scary moving in if you already had friends,” I nod, rolling up my sleeves. “Where is your potato peeler?”

“Yeah. Something like that,” he mutters, “and potato peeler? What’s that?”

I just kind of think on that for a minute. He wasn’t peeling the potatoes, was he? No wonder he thought they tasted like dirt.

“Just uh. Get a knife, we’ll take the skin off.”

He goes to another drawer and finds a pair of sharp knives, and I show him carefully how to pull the skin from potato. My motions are fluid and smooth, and my peels fall evenly in to the plastic bag we’re using for peels. His are choppy, and uneven, and the blade hits his hands too many times but he never cuts himself. His fingers are thick and his palms are like leather, calloused and hard.

“Did you like, grow up on a farm or something?” I thought to ask. That might explain why he has no idea how to cook. And the calloused hands. Didn’t those old fashioned farm families keep boys outside to help out?

“A farm? No. God no. I grew up in a city, thank god,” he replied. "Oh you're looking at the- I work out a lot. Helps with anger management."

“Oh! that's uh, that's good,” I respond akwrdly. I was a little embrassed he'd noticed me looking him over.

He nodded, holding up the potato he’d peeled. “This okay?”

“Fine for your first try,” I grinned. It wasn’t. It was terrible. He had weird notches taken out of it and the brown skin still lingered in places. “Pick up another, we’ve got a long way to go.”

* * *

 

Class finished on December twenty first, and I passed my final exam with flying colors. Almost a perfect A, and I had Karkat to thank for that. If I hadn’t gone over the material with Karkat over and over again, I don’t think I would have done so well. He did well too. Not a four point, but a three five, maybe. I kept seeing him though, well in to the spring semester.

We stopped meeting at the coffee shop, and instead we meet for dinner. Maybe the movies, and more often we meet at each other’s homes.

He lives in a share house, paying rent with five other people. There’s four trolls including him, and two humans. They’re all pretty privet, and they don’t usually speak to me beyond saying hello. The front door is usually open, since the six of them come and go so often, so I’m able to let myself in without knocking. I see him as soon as the door opens, standing at the bottom of the steps looking up.

“I’m not having any more of this nonsense horse shit going on in this hive! I will throw your certifiably crazy ass out on to the lawn ring and shut the door on you like a barkfeind that shit on the carpet! Do you hear me you sorry excuse for a troll?” Karkat shouts. Up the stairs in the share house is Terezi, one of his housemates. She cackles and she stands her ground, sneering down at Karkat.

He refuses to move. I can see his lips peel back in to a litterally snarl, showing off sharp teeth. A sort of intense, rumbling, sound fills the room, and I realize he’s growling. The frequency is high and it vibrates my sinuses, my inner ear, and I can feel a head ache creeping up my neck. I reach up to try and rub the uncomfortable feeling away.

“Terezi,” he says, his voice layered over the oscillation, “back. Off.”

“You can’t take a joke, can you?” She mocks. Her expression grows bored, and finally she just leaves. Turning around and disappearing from my view. A door shuts moments later and finally he stops. The vibrations stop all together and I have to exhale to relive the pressure.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “She’s been insufferable since, well. Pretty much fucking forever.”

I still haven’t taken my jacket off. “What were you arguing about?”

He rolled his eyes, his shoulders slumping over. “She’s just worming her way in to something thats not her business, as usual. Her nose might as well be brown she sticks it in to other people’s shit so much. Keeps trying to insinuate I’m trying to make you in to my red- er. My girlfriend.”

Oh right. Quadrants. Those were a thing weren’t they.

“Right. I hate that, when people think boys and girls can’t be friends,” I agree.

“Right,” he nodded.

Something feels different after that one single word. Like I’ve just been pushed down a slope with too steep an incline. My mood plummets. Why though? I’m not jealous of anyone, and I don’t like him that way. We were friends, study buddies. Not anything more or less.

“I um,” I mutter, “I’ve got a headache. I think I’m gonna go back home.”

“You just got here,” he states. I know he doesn’t want me to go. I don’t want to go. I haven’t even been here a whole five minutes.

“Yeah, but, it really hurts I um. Ill text you later, okay?”

“Okay,” he relents, and I grimace at the look he gives me. He’s sad and maybe a little frustrated. I leave out the same door I came in.

* * *

 

My headache does not go away. I have it for days after and it never lets up. I have to call in sick to work two days in a row.

Karkat texts me, but I don’t text him. My phone inbox, when I can bare to look at the screen, has three missed calls from and twelve unanswered messages. One of those messages is from my sister, two of the calls are from my best friend, but the rest are all from him. I finally pull myself out of bed, in to my dark house’s kitchen for a drink of water when my phone starts ringing. I’ve got it on silent, but the noise the vibration makes is too much too. I scramble to silence it, swiping right to answer the call.

“Hello?”

“Hey, where are you?” Karkat’ voice comes over the line.

“I’m at home, I can’t talk now,” I reply forcefully. I can’t. Every word he speaks feels like another nail pounding in to my already splitting head.

“Hold on! Don’t shut me out, please!” He shouts, and I cringe. “I’m sorry, I dont know what happened, or if you’re mad, but please, tell me what I did!”

“You didn’t do anything. I’ve. I’ve got a headache,” I tried to weasel out of the conversation. That feeling was raising in my gut again. I wanted to vomit.

“Don’t fucking lie to me!” He screams though the speaker.

“You litterally didn’t do anything! It’s not your fault! I got a head ache from the other day, the reverberation of the- I, oh Jesus Christ, I’m gonna throw up.” I slump against my cool refrigerator. I don’t think I can move right now.

“From the- oh. I’m coming over,” he says.

“No, don’t,” I try.

“I’m coming over and you’re gonna fucking like it,” he hisses and then my phone shuts itself off. The home screen is glowing in my face. I lock it as fast as I can.

I end up on the floor, my head between my knees so I don’t puke. I don’t know where he is or how long it takes him to get to my house, but I don’t lock my back door when I’m home so he’s able to let himself in that way.

“You look like shit.”

“Don’t talk,” I moan. My stomach lurches.

“Just be quiet,” he hushed, “here, let me.”

He sat down, leaning on my cupboard. He crossed his legs and pulled me in to his lap. He went slow, a hand on either side of my head and set me gentle down across his thighs. His left hand covered my eyes, and his right rested on the crown of my head, and he sighed.

“I forgot that growling irritated human’s thinkpans. I’m just so used to being around Dave and Rose and my friends. They’re already used to it,” he whispered. “I’ll be more careful.”

I huffed. He was so warm. I don’t think my touch has ever lingered so long in his. He felt like a heating pad wrapped in summer sunshine. Heaven. His fingers moved to the base of my skull and then, Jesus, they dug in and massaged and I don’t think id never felt anything so wonderful. I let a ragged breath out finally, relaxing into his touch as his other hand moved over my eyes to rub in to my temple. So good.

“Friends don’t let friends keel over from a headache,” I can hear him grin.

There’s that word again. Friends. I don’t know why that sets me off because that’s what we are. I don’t just think I’m going to puke, this time I actually do.

 

* * *

 

I go two weeks without talking to him. I have my sister call him up and tell him I went home to my parents, that I was still sick. He asked if he could come visit, but my sister made up another lie and I stayed in my house for almost the entire time. I had to work and go to class still, however. I worked nights at a campus bar, and I managed to avoid seeing almost anyone I knew during those two weeks.

On the third week, I saw him.

I was bussing a table when a co-worker tapped my shoulder and asked me to cover her table for her while she went on a smoke break. I never turned down an extra tip, so of course I agreed. I was looking down, counting menus as I briskly crossed the floor and stopped in front of the table. After I passed them out, I flipped out my little note book and clicked my pen down. “What can I get you all to drink?”

“Coke, please.”

“Water.”

“I’ll have a water too.”

“I want you to answer your fucking phone.”

My head snapped up. Karkat was sitting in the corner of the booth, scowling angrily a white knuckle grip on the table. I felt like I was having an asthma attack. My chest tightened and my breath caught in my throat. I couldn’t feel my fingers.

“Do you know her, Karkat?” The guy to my left asked, his buck teeth poking over his lip.

“Yeah, I know her. We were supposed to be friends,” he narrowed his eyes. “I thought you were supposed to be sick at your fucking parents?”

“I,” my mouth fell open. I didn’t know how to reply. “I’ll talk to you later. I’m working.”

I took my pen and left, writing down their drink order and ripping it off of the book. I stood in the back room for a whole five minutes before my coworker returned, and I slapped the slip of paper into her hand.

 

* * *

 

“I don’t want to be friends!” I scream finally, with a white-knuckled grip on my front door. “You fuck, you fucking! Come over here and you confront me, and I just. I don’t want to be friends anymore!”

“What did I do?” He shouts back. “What did I do? Or are you just that big of a psychotic nut job that you slipped down the slope in to nervous break down crazy town? Throw my ass in nuclear waste first, tie me to four horse-hoofbeasts and slap their asses and drag me in four different directions, just fucking tell me what I did!”

“You didn’t do anything!” I insist loudly. “I just don’t want to be your friend anymore.”

“There has got to be some reason in gods green goddamn earth you don’t want to see me any more. What is it?” He pressed.

That takes me off guard, because I do want to see him. I wanna see him every day, I wanna spend time with him, I wanna drink coffee and throw popcorn at movie screens just like we used to. Before it got weird. Before we were just 'friends.’

But that’s what we were. Friends. And I realized that 'friends’ wasn’t enough for me.

“Because I can’t think about you as a friend,” I reply, and it’s much, much quieter. “Not anymore. Karkat I really like you. I really like you. And i really want to- I just- if you want to be just friends that’s okay, but I want more.”

He exhaled sharply. “Oh.”

I think this is why I didn’t want to face up to the reality of what was happening. I’d ruined whatever it was we had between us. He was going to turn around, leave, and all I’d have to do is pray I didn’t see him on campus. I went to shut my door and he stopped me, using his huge hand to push it open wider than it had been originally.

“That’s good. That’s good because, um, I really think I really like you too. You’re just, ugh. You’re funny, and I like you and I guess that’s all that fucking matters isnt it?” He asks and I think there might be tears in his eyes. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too,” I return.

“Could we talk some more? Because right now I feel like my head is still shoved up my waste chute,” he mutters. I move out of the way of the door and let him in.

“Only if you help me pull my head out of mine.”

* * *

 

The start of our relationship is slow. Before he let his touch linger, but now he was hesitant to touch me. Before he was more motivated to start conversations, but now he spent a lot of his time, looking my way but not speaking. It’s cute. He only does it when he thinks I’m not watching.

He works on campus in the book store, and I find myself walking there between classes to buy something stupid like a pencil or a bottle of water just so I can see him. He tries to act like I’m bothering him, and I match his snark pretty evenly. Inside, though, I think it melts him.

One Saturday night when I’m working until close at the bar, he comes in at one thirty and orders a single beer. I’ve known him long enough to know alcohol doesn’t effect trolls, and he thinks beer tastes like piss, so I figure he’s up to something. The bar closes at two, and somehow he cons my manager in to letting him stay after they throw everyone else out. It’s twenty minutes after two before I actually get to speak to him.

“And what do I owe the visit, Mr. Vantas?” I grin.

“I was hoping my lady might let me walk her home this evening,” He grins. He looks tired, like he should have been in bed hours ago. When I first meet him he told me he never slept well, and I wonder if tonight he’s just so wound up the insomnia won’t let him calm down. I drank a Red Bull at midnight so I’m good to go a while longer.

“Okay, you sound like a creep with the my lady shit, so no. Sorry. Can’t tonight,” I grin back. He knows I’m joking.

“Okay, cool. I’ll just let the drunks drag you in to the back alley.”

I pull my trusty bottle of mace out of my pocket and hold it up for him to see. “I’d like to see them try. How about I walk you home?”

That has him rolling his eyes. He’s pretty easily twice my size, and he’s short for a troll. “Yeah okay. Who in their right mind is gonna come after me?”

“You dunno, dude. Some hoe trying to steal my man,” I waggle my eyebrows suggestively. “There will be no hoes permitted in a twenty yard radius of my boyfriend.”

“You better enforce that,” he chuckles. “Okay. You walk me to your house then.”

I have to duck away for just a minute to finish cleaning up so we can close, and after saying goodbye to the rest of my coworkers, Karkat and I leave. I’m tired from working all night, and hopped up on caffeine, so I really don’t think twice about reaching over to hold his hand. He sort of twists uncomfortably, but he doesn’t try to pull his hand from mine. Oh, right. He’s been careful about touching me, hasn’t he? And wait, this is the first time we’ve held hands.

“You good?” I think to ask.

“Fine,” he says. His tone is normal, and finally, his fingers wrap around my palm. It’s a cold night in the middle of April, but I don’t feel chilled at all.

“So what’s up? You don’t usually come visit me at work,” I try to start conversation.

“Oh, John and Dave were fighting so I thought I’d come see you,” he says casually, and then much less casually says “I was uh. Kinda thinking about how Dave and I went wrong and well. I kinda wanted to talk to you about something.”

“I’m all ears.”

“Right,” he says and sort of nods to himself. It takes him another few strides to work up the confidence to talk. “Communication is just really important to me. And I know how this kinda started out and I just wanted you to know that.”

Okay. I made a mental commitment to remember that. Communication was important to him. I’m used to shutting myself off when I get upset with someone, but if he’s asking me specifically not to I won’t. “Okay. If it’s important to you, it’s important to me.”

He’s looking straight ahead, trying not to look stressed I think.

“Is there something else you wanted to talk about?” I ask.

“Yes, there is. I don’t know how to say it without freaking you out though,” he takes a deep breath and kegs it out, squeezing my hand.

“Well, just say it I guess. We’ll work though it,” I try to make him feel like I’m invested in him. It must be pretty important for him to come to me at two am, and I can’t think for the life of me what it is. He takes another deep breath and lets it out, and then another.

“Okay,” he says, “okay, I’m just gonna say it.”

I don’t reply, but I keep looking his way and I want him to feel like I’m listening.

“So where I went wrong with Dave. And Terezi I guess. I get so consumed in trying to shove someone I love into every quadrant I think I end up suffocating them. And they leave me. But I think I figured it out. I think that quadrants aren’t for me, but I’m still scared I’ll smother you.”

Okay. Step one of being a good girlfriend. Listen. Check. Step two. Panic? As much as I would have liked to, I needed to approach this in a way that showed I care.

“Thank you, for being up front with me. I appreciate it, and your concerns are completely valid. I’ll tell you what, if I feel like your overwhelming me, I’ll tell you. Deal?”

“Deal,” he agreed, licking his lips.

“I do have one single problem!” I declared, “and it is the biggest, hugest, worst problem to ever happen upon a daringly beautiful woman!”

“And just what is that?” He inquired. I’m not sure if he could tell I was joking.

“I have not been kissed by my boyfriend and it has been three weeks into our relationship! This is an absolute scandal! But I absolutely understand if he isn’t ready yet.”

I watch the edge of his lip quirk. “This boyfriend of yours sounds like a real jackass.”

“Grade A jackass,” I agree. “no better jackass to be found.”

The jerk I feel is unexpected as he pulls me via my arm against his chest. He catches my hip in his other hand and smiles down at me. He looks so happy, and it’s an honest happiness. One that makes you feel whole and makes pride blaze from your heart. He gazes down at me like I’m something valuable to him, not something he’s accomplished or bought. I’m moving subconsciously, trying to close the gap between us, but he does it for me.

Heat radiates off him like an inferno. From his hands, his chest, his lips. The kiss is dry, and he’s stiff, but it’s a good first kiss. Not a terrible one that I’ll tell him is good. It’s really good this time.

I’m on my very tip toes, and I can still barely reach. The remedy to that problem is his arm, wrapped around my middle robust give me a few extra inches. My free hand finds his cheek to cup, and my fingers squeeze around his like a vice.

He kisses firm. Not overly demanding, not soft and mailable. Just firm, and he doesn’t resist when I tilt my head to deepen the kiss. I’m not sure who taught this guy how to kiss, but I’d like to thank them. First for the expertise in lip locking, and then for letting him go to find me. He tastes like beer, but it’s faint.

His breathing quickens and so does mine as until finally I have to pull away. It’s silent. No pop.

“Don’t you ever think about how I could literally lift you with one arm? You never feel intimidated?” He exhales.

“I usually think about how lucky I am you can lift me with one arm,” I remark. And he laughs. And then he kisses me again. A passing car honks at us, laying on the horn as their headlights wash over us on the sidewalk. We give them the finger.

 

* * *

 

I spend the summer at college. I went home after my freshman year, but I like it on campus better now that I’m older. Karkat stays on campus too. I come to find out that trolls don’t exactly have parents to go back to. They can pretty well take care of themselves.

Summer is party time in college towns. More so than usual, because there’s no class going on. In the summer, instead of buying books college kids buy booze. It’s not fun to get drunk without him, so I lay off the parties.

We go with his friends to a lake for the Fourth of July. He’s not exactly one for water but he looks really good in swim trunks. We go to the county fair in August and pet the goats. We swap stories next to a bonfire ring. We go shopping, we see movies, and we stay up until stupid o clock in the morning on a regular basis.

Somehow I can’t help but think it won’t get better still.

 

* * *

 

Where Karkat sleeps is literally a pile of soft things thrown on the ground with one of those dorm sized garbage cans sitting next to it. There are other objects in the room, like a desk, a bookcase, and a table, but Karkat must spend a lot of time in his bed, er, pile because there are college books, drink bottles, food wrappers and his laptop all strewn around it.

I've made my way over because he’s sick. And if he’s sick enough to wake me up when he knows I have to work tonight, then it’s bad. When I get to his house, it’s empty. Dave has gone somewhere with Dirk, Kanaya has class, Terezi has to work, and who knows what Vriska does all day. The point was he was home all alone, and too sick to move. I find him on top of the aforementioned pile.

His nose is stuffed up, his mouth is dry. He coughs every other breath and he’s wrapped under seven blankets. I want to say he’s running a fever, but it’s exactly the opposite. He’s actually colder.

“Poor baby,” I say sincerely. “Do you want some ginger ale or something? A Tylenol?”

“No. I’ve already had all that shit,” he pauses to basically hack up a lung. “I wanna leach your body heat.”

As far as I know Trolls can’t pass disease to humans and vice versa, so I don’t think for one second about climbing in with him. His body racks with chills every few moments, shivering all the way down to his toes. I think for a second about the best way to do this, but it seems like he’s already got a plan. He pretty well man handles me down and curls his entire body around mine, his arm over my torso and mine over the top of it.

“Thanks for coming over,” he mutters, and he looks pretty hazy. Like he’s not all there. I watch his eyes hood over, and his grip on me loosens, and he falls asleep in short order.

The pile smells like him, which is mostly like sweat and kinda like his body wash, and still faintly like that one specific smell everyone has but only their lover seems to notice.

I'm warm and pretty sated myself, so I decide to try and finish sleeping. His fever breaks right before I have to leave to go get ready, but by then Kanaya is back to take over for me.

 

* * *

 

I get sicker than a goddamn dog three days later. Thank you flu season.

 

* * *

 

College graduation happens.

It’s scary, because what exactly are we going to do with ourselves now? There are student loans to pay, jobs to find, lives to complete. Do only four years of theory really qualify me to do anything? Is there really a career for me out there? Graduation happens on a sunny Saturday in May, and my parents haul my baby sister up to see me. It’s a lot of trouble just to get to walk across a too bright stage for a piece of paper. Then, come to find out, I don’t even get the paper yet. It comes in the mail.

My sister loves Karkat. She asks him to take his cap off so she can see his horns as soon as we leave the auditorium. He tries to act like she’s being a nuisance, but I know that look anywhere. The grumpy scowl is a front, he’s having fun with her. She's thirteen, way too big for my dad to pick up, but Karkat has no problem hoisting her up on his shoulder to walk from the car to the restaurant.

  
We order food and they bring us appetizers, and it’s really only a matter of time before my dad starts pulling out the 'boyfriend questions.’ Where is he from, what’s his family like, all those sorts of stuff. Trolls don’t do family like humans do. That’s a tough one to explain to dad.

“So, if you don’t have anywhere to go back to, what are you planning on doing after college?” My dad asks, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Immediately? I guess I need to find somewhere to live since my housemates are moving out. But after that I’m gonna start looking for editing jobs and trying to get my novel published,” Karkat told him, very matter of factly.

“You didn’t tell me they were all moving out of the share house,” I interjected.

“I just found out this morning,” he tries to pass it off but I think it’s really bothering him. “I’ve got some cash to put down on a lease. They all want me to go out drinking with them tonight after this, so we’ll figure something out.”

I’m not sure how to combat this situation, but the food comes then and the subject changes.

We end up going back to my house after dinner. Karkat leaves at seven to head home to get ready, and my parents and my sister leave at eight. They invite me with them home for the weekend, but I decide to stay. I don’t actually have a plan for the summer except Find A Job. My lease is up on my house on June first, so I guess I have until then to figure it out.

I text Karkat just to tell him I’m home and settle down on my couch for television. Tv is mindless, which is good for a heavy head.

My boyfriend texts me at midnight, and since alcohol has no effect on trolls I know he’s not drunk. He asks to come over and I let him. I let him in fifteen minutes later John drops him off and I let him in the front door. He basically mows me down with a hug.

“I love you,” he says. And he hasn’t said that since our bedroom fuck up a week ago.

“I love you too.”

He exhales sharply and pulls away to look me in the eye. “John and Dave wan me to move to Washington with them. And Kanaya invited me to go with her to New York State with Rose, and Rose is doing English lit too, and,” he groans. “Everyone is going somewhere different and I don’t know what to do.”

“You should do what you feel is right,” I didn’t want to sway him in any one direction. I don’t want to tell him what is right. I don’t know any better than him.

“If I sit here and do fuck all nothing, they’ll all leave regardless,” he says like he’s in confessional, “but if I go with them, I leave you.”

“Dude I,” I huff, frustrated, “Karkat If you feel like you want to go, you can go. Don’t do something that feels right because you’re concerned about me.”

“That’s just it! None of it feels right unless I include you! I keep running over these scenarios in my head and they all seem so, so wrong unless you're part of the equation too. I can edit books anywhere. I can do it from a home computer, but I don’t think I can do it without you.”

He hoists me up like I’m nothing, and he hauls me out of the doorway. He kicks my front door shut and it slams. He pulls me against him as he hits the couch and buries his face in my neck like he’s trying to hide from the world.

I think if I was a troll the correct thing to do would be to purr for him, but I can’t so I have to settle for rubbing his shoulders and his back. He purrs instead, for the both of us I think. His warmth is welcome, and there will never come a time when it won’t be. His hands knead my shirt, and he inhales sharply like he wants to cry. The tears don’t come.  
Everything was changing, and it all felt so lonely. I wanted to be with him too. He chooses me over them, people he’d been around his entire life. I felt like that wasn’t right. He shouldn't choose a year and a half old relationship over his career, over friendship, but he was. He was and I couldn’t tell him not to. I loved him with my whole heart.

The TV is still on but it’s nothing more than white noise. My fingers press deep into his tissue, trying to rub away his tension. I work higher, up his neck, into his scalp, and then on a split second decision, I decide to rub the base of his horns. He rolls his head back into my grip, and he blows air through his vocal cords. I love it when he does that, chuffs like a tiger or something. It’s a happy noise that’s supposed to represent safety. He squeezes me a little tighter.

He squeezes me a little tighter.

**Author's Note:**

> I guess that's my best attempt at a "Serious adult relationship." I dunno.


End file.
